The Courtly Wrap

Pressed into service just in time for this weekend’s luncheons and soirees, here’s all you need to know to attract battalions of admiring glances. Prepare for men to lay kerchiefs over puddles, sparing your slippers muddy messes, when they hear you speak authoritatively on the events of the week that was.

We’re in the… NOT

Australian Spondoolies More Expensive Than Spondies of 19 Other Top Economies. It’s not often the accusation of being a glass-half-full type is levelled at La Triv, but from now on there’s no ducking it. The upside of our highly muscular currency is that we need to do baskets and trolleys and carts more internet shopping from overseas retailers. If we have to pay the better part of $10 for a block of Bega cheese at Coles, we may as well be wearing OS-sourced Louboutins while we do it.

Gyngells Take Tiny Future Media Mogul Home From Hospital. Love this photo of the Gyngies and their new person. Love Leila looking post-partum but so happy. Love that while Gyng was at a critical stage of the Nine Entertainment debt-for-equity swap negotiations (wish I could instigate some of those for the Palazzo Trivialista finances) he left for the hospital, declaring that some things were more important than the future of Nine. And in the end he got a great result.

Roo Stages Protest At Lack Of Adequate Passenger Pick-Up Zones At Australian Airports; “Hopping Mad”, Source Says. Confirming all those cliches overseas tourists hold dear when it comes to the Wide Brown Land, this Skippy was spotted bounding about the carpark at Tullamarine. After he was tranquilised and taken to a vet, it was determined that the only damage he’d sustained was some distress and very “sore toenails from the concrete”. It’s the sign of a cynical world when one wonders if he was a plant by Tourism Victoria, and whether we’ll soon see a video of a ladyroo meeting him in an approved pick-up zone, then both of them unspooling a huge ball of string in a graffiti-ed laneway going viral.

Tracy Spicer Outs Culture Of Judging Women By Appearance In Medialand; Country Shocked And Outraged. Well done TS, nothing shocking in it to those of us passingly acquainted with the media (or anyone else, one suspects), but a great and witty piece of prose. And brave. An issue as old as newsprint,though: my boss at the Wordporium often recalls her first day as a cadet in the News Limited newsroom, when a much older male hack welcomed her to the world of journalism by calling her “Sugar Tits”.

Rae’s On Wategos Sold For $20m; Seriousimo Bereft. See, he was counting on winning the $50m Lotto on Tuesday night to fund the purchase. Of course, no-one won, so if only the sale could have waited til next Wednesday after we’d won the new and improved amount of $70m… Seriousimo and I are lucky to have stayed at the pink palace (pic above pre-dates the paint job) many times, most recently last Easter. Many memories…that many-shuttered room was where we spent the first four nights of la honeymoon and…

…this is the pool where we ‘hung’ with Ewan McGregor when he was in the Wide Brown Land filming Moulin Rouge (with Rake!!!). Ewan even referred to that white structure in the background as “Yoda’s hut”. He was deliciously indiscreet — even told us he thought Samuel L Jackson, his Star Wars co-star, was “one of the world’s worst actors.” Hope the new European, $20m-poorer owners keep Rae’s open, if only for the sake of Seriousimo.